Water lease bad idea

June 14, 2014

I've been reading all the stories about the potential sale (whoops! I mean lease) of the Altoona Water Authority. Although when you're looking at 50 years, it's about the same thing. My first impression was that the current City Council members must be idiots. The numbers are so far out of whack.

Why sell something that generates $12 million to $15 million income per year for an upfront payment that's about one-third of that value over the term of the lease? Sure, you get the instant gratification of a large upfront payment, but in return you lose all that long-term income. This appears to be typical government thinking: live for today and don't worry about tomorrow.

The more I think about it, the smarter the present council members look. They're not dumb at all, they're just self-serving. This is a great deal for them. All their problems go away instantly. They will be able to throw money at any problem and make it disappear. And when the money's all gone, which I'm sure won't take long, there will most likely be a different set of city officials left to deal with the deficit created by the loss of that yearly income the water used to provide.

It's not too hard to see how that deficit will be dealt with, especially since the reassessment will virtually remove the caps on how much city residents can be taxed.